I chatted with Maitland Kelly of the Creatures of the Loin about the upcoming Baker’s Dozen moped race around the Appalachia’s. Maitland has been carrying the torch of the original Pinball Run and is in the sixth year of the new event (during 2020 there was no actual event due to the pandemic). I caught him in the middle of a move but he was kind enough to lend me some time. The interview has been edited for time and clarity.
Jesse: Can you just quickly explain what the Baker’s Dozen race is for those that don’t actually know what this is?
Maitland: Yeah totally. So this one might get a little rambly. The Baker’s Dozen is in the spirit and style of the Cannonball Run Sea to Shining Sea race. Where you basically take like a really really old motorcycle or really fancy expensive car and you try to drive as fast as possible across the country. The Baker’s Dozen is a little bit toned down just because it’s hard for people to get a month off of work. So it’s more like 7-10 days. You’re given a start point and end point every day, then the route is entirely up to you with a few rules about how to choose a route. And you’re racing essentially to get to the end point in the fastest time. This adds up over the course of seven days. So you’ll go 250 miles one day and 180 the next. We’ve had a 360 mile day before. At the end we added up to see who has the fastest time. Usually we’ve done anywhere from 1200 to 2000 miles over the course of the event. You have 24 hours once you started the day to make it to the finish line. So if you break down, stuff goes wrong, you have some time. You can ride through the night but you can’t put the bike in a chase truck. The moped has to make it under its own power, or you can keep pedaling it.
Jesse: So each day starts at 10am this year?
Maitland: Yeah we made an exception one year when we were going through the desert just because it’s hot as shit, where we started at 9am.
Jesse: What are the causes of being disqualified? So you can get put in a chase truck, not complete a leg of the event in 24 hours…
Maitland: Yeah so you can get disqualified or be given a DNF (or did not finish). That basically takes you out of the running for any prizes in competition. That’s it though, you can still ride. It’s still fun as hell. But there are several ways to be disqualified. One is drafting behind your vehicle. The chase can block traffic for you still. You can’t put the moped onto or inside of a trailer or truck or anything like that. It has to be under its own power. You could push it, you can pedal it somewhere. You can be towed if it’s by another moped, that is an exception. A new one for this year is you can only use one engine case. So for example let’s say you have a pre-built second motor and your original motor breaks terribly. Then you have to disassemble the spare motor and swap the parts into the original case.
Jesse: What is the purpose of this new rule for this year? I guess I don’t understand the reasoning behind the change.
Maitland: No, that’s actually a very good question. It’s an experiment I want to do. It’s a race against time and you can kind of gain yourself some time by just spending money and buying all parts for additional motors and just kind of swapping motors on. It’s just throwing money at the problem. But if you have the ability to build a motor you should be able to rebuild a motor. No limit on the other parts you can bring. Its real intent is for you to have one motor and be able to fix anything that can go wrong.
Jesse: How many riders per team?
Maitland: You can have up to five team members. I think I put a cap at three bikes per team. As a team you can pool parts, chase, routes, all that. It is simpler and cheaper if you have a team of a couple people and one bike where you switch off duties of riding, driving the chase, navigator, stuff like that. But some teams have definitely gone with multiple riders in the past.
Jesse: What are the bikes you typically see people bring to this event?
Maitland: That’s kind of changed over the last events. The first Pinball with Rob Burrito down the east coast it was a lot of people’s daily drivers. There were breakdowns and some of them were probably pretty uncomfortable. As time has gone on, people realized comfort is the name of the game. I mean you want to go fast of course but you also want to be comfortable. You’re starting to see a lot of mopeds that are styled kind of like baggers or adventure bikes. Just to give the riders a lot more comfort, ridability, ability to store tools, or take their sleeping stuff with them. Sometimes your chase might lose you or it has to go run an errand so you are seeing more bikes geared toward rider independence. Being able to fix things, having a lot of easily visible and accessible parts and the few tools that you need to fix those parts. They are starting to kind of look more like small motorcycles.
Jesse: Yeah that makes a lot of sense. It’s just evolution over time but I mean are most people sticking with your standards like Puch E50s, Minarelli V1s?
Maitland: Chad (Burke) brings a lot of weird motors which is cool. I think in the earlier Pinball runs you saw a lot more of your E50s. Saw three ZA50s on Pinball II which was impressive. They all made it. Honestly throughout all of them the first or second place winners usually is almost always a Tomos A35, sometimes A55. Tomos is pretty solidly represented up there. You’ll see some Minerelli’s. It’s usually Me and Angel, that’s about it. Zeros brought one 2 years ago. Mostly what you’re starting to see is Honda hobbits. Hobbits are actually pretty solidly represented. Derbi not as much. It’s mainly people on hobbits actually.
Jesse: That makes sense because out of the bikes I’ve helped people bring were all hobbits or E50s. Those are a pretty solid gamble. There are not a lot of tools, easy work on, generally fairly reliable. Tomos is probably another really good choice.
Maitland: Yeah there’s a lot of parts you can get too. The First Bakers Dozen Team Never DNF actually exploded a rear pulley and that cost them about 12:00 hours of time. Just acquiring the new pulley and giving it to the rider.
Jesse: So what are you specifically bringing this year?
Maitland: I’m bringing the same piece of crap I’ve been lugging around for the last few years. It’s gone through several iterations but it’s a Motobecane 50V frame with a Minarelli V1 welded onto it. It’s got a Gilardoni (e50) kit on it. I just had Jake Spangle weld up a Simonini circuit pipe during the pandemic just because I want to have just a little bit more torque and I don’t really need to go like 55 all the time. Aiming for like 40-45 average speed. And it’s got big ‘ol kX80 forks on the front.
Jesse: Are you running with a teammate this year?
Maitland: So it’s always really hard. Pinball III was the last time I really had a team because I’ve been running it. Jeni Rae hasn’t really been able to come out as often the last couple of years. She adopted several children before the last one so she wasn’t able to chase. So I’m just riding solo usually and convincing people to drive my van for me. Then I break down a lot and end up DNF-ing then I just drive my van for the last two days.
Jesse: Do you have people that show just to drive chase and help out or is it pretty much everybody showing up participating in the event?
Maitland: There’s always people that show up for the party. I’ve had a few people reach out to me this year about wanting to show up for a day or two and ride motorcycles. One guy wants to drive behind in his RV and bring parts. It’s kind of like a rolling party. So if you wanna show up go ahead.
Jesse: I noticed the route this year does not have a lot of moped cities in it. How do you plan on where the end points are?
Maitland: In the past we’ve always tried to go with a theme. The first Bakers was we are going to go visit all our moped friends on the east coast and the south. It was just a tour de friends. But then the next year in the southwest it was almost exclusively camping. That was actually pretty fun. So with the pandemic happening we are going to do all camping this year. We’ll reserve these sites by doing some brief googling and it usually turns out pretty awesome. The first night we’re gonna be a little bit south of Atlanta. We’re gonna be staying on a goat farm and the woman who runs the farm is really excited for us to be there. We were very up front with everyone about what we are doing. Told them we are a group of 30 or 40 people, mopeds, some trucks. Maybe a bus with us. And we like to party but not too loud. There will be a few state parks will be staying at all along the tail of the dragon and the Blue Ridge parkway. The second night will be staying at Deals Gap motorcycle resort. Those dudes are really stoked to house us. The guy I reserved it from on the phone was rebuilding an RD400 for his wife to race. So they are super into 2-strokes. We have a couple other biker campsites that are pretty dope. And it ends in Richmond at Thomas and Ashley’s property and meetup with all the Richmond friends.
Jesse: For those that aren’t familiar with what the Tail of the Dragon is, can you explain that?
Maitland: The Blueridge Parkway is all down the east coast. I haven’t been on them to be honest with you but basically there’s a section where there used to be a whole bunch of moonshiners. And the highway is really twisty. One of the twistiest parts is called the Tail of the Dragon. It has 318 curves in 11 miles. So you are just going around corners all day. And basically the entire highway up the Appalachians through Tennessee, West Virginia Virginia, Virginia, it’s all a bunch of moonshiner roads deep in the forest.
Jesse: What day are you going to be going through the Tail of the Dragon? Is it a required part of the route?
Maitland: It will be required. Day two from the campsite you have to ride the Tail of the Dragon to reach the campsite we will be staying at that night. You could go all the way around but it would take you several more hours.
Jesse: You have the second day listed as the fun day, so the whole purpose is to ride that route?
Maitland: The dragon is probably some of the more intense roads but then after that you’ll be riding similar roads with a lot of curves going up the mountains and kind of looking at some pretty epic points.
Jesse: You have a couple days that are going to be 200 plus miles. How remote are some of these areas and what extra planning had to be done?
Maitland: So one thing that does help out is usually for the event there will be some city we’re staying in or near they will have a UPS Dropbox. If you contact them, treats will send parts to it, wherever you’re at, if you really need them. But some parts are gonna be very remote. There is a square section in West Virginia that I believe will be going through known as the national radio quiet zone. And you can’t have a wifi router in this area. There’s no cellphone towers. It’s exclusively for listening to really deep radio waves in space. That part might be tricky if you’re separated from your chase, or anything like that. It will also drop out of Glympse so there’s gonna be a lot of cellphone reception issues, I predict this race.
Jesse: All the riders must use Glympse to be tracked and that is typically how I watch the race. Just watching the dots update on the map. That seems to be the best way to watch the race, is there another way people can follow along or interact?
Maitland: Glympse is probably the best way to “watch” the event since we can’t afford tiny broadcast cameras for everyone. But we’re adding something new this year for folks at home to get a lot closer to the action: A public Discord server where you can talk about the event, see some photos and videos, and get to know the riders too.
So come join us over at the brand new Discord server! Check out the official website, or follow along on Instagram, either on the official channel or post your pics with hashtag #bakersdozenrun. Once the race starts, follow the riders and teams live on Glympse with the tag !BakersDozenRun. I will also be doing daily updates right here as the race unfolds, so be sure to check back to get a daily recap on the event. The event starts on June 27th at 10am eastern standard time and runs through July 3rd until everyone crosses the finish line. So follow along and cheer for your favorite moped peeps.